York University faculty member Janet Walker will deliver the 2019 Jean-Gabriel Castel lecture on international law and international organizations on Feb. 26 at the BMO Conference Centre at Glendon Hall from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Janet Walker

Walker is a professor of law (past associate dean) at Osgoode Hall Law School, a CIArb Chartered Arbitrator, and a member of the Ontario Bar, and licensed legal consultant, New York State Bar.

She will deliver a talk on “International Commercial Arbitration in an Era of Transparency.” The lecture will be presented in English, and is free to attend.

Walker has served in ad hoc and administered arbitrations in a variety of seats. She is a member of numerous associations and panels, and has a good working knowledge of Spanish and French. She is founding member of ICC Canada (the Canadian Chamber of Commerce), Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society, CIArb (Chartered Institute of Arbitrators) Toronto Chapter (founding chair), Young Canadian Arbitration Practitioners and ArbitralWomen.

For 20 years, Walker has consulted on, and provided expert evidence in, cross-border and complex litigation, and has served on law reform working groups for the American Law Institute, American Bar Association (ABA), International Bar Association (IBA) and the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, including its international arbitration legislation project advisory board.

Walker authors Canada’s main text on private international law, Canadian Conflict of Laws, and Halsbury’s Laws of Canada, Conflict of Laws. She is the general editor of The Civil Litigation Process, Class Actions in Canada, and a co-editor of Common Law, Civil Law and the Future of Categories and Private International Law in Common Law Canada, and is the author of many journal articles.

Walker was advisor (common law) to Canada’s Federal Courts rules committee (2006-15), and CIArb academic advisor (2014-15). She is the International Law Association Canadian branch’s past president, International Association of Procedural Law’s secretary general, and she coached the Osgoode Vis Team (2001-14). Walker was Leverhulme professor at University College, Oxford, Hauser global law professor at NYU and NYU/NUS in Singapore, and visiting professor in Tunisia (2001-14).

About the annual Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture

The annual Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture was created in 2004 to honour Professor Jean-Gabriel Castel, an internationally acknowledged jurist and now emeritus Distinguished Research Professor in international law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Officer of the Order of Canada.

For a decade, Castel taught international law to Glendon’s undergraduate students in the International Studies Program. This public lecture series was launched in order to honour his contribution to this department, and to give the students in the Department of International Studies, as well as other social sciences disciplines, the opportunity to hear an eminent jurist and/or a well-known personality in public life discuss issues in law that demand public debate.

The first speaker in the series was Jean-Gabriel Castel himself, who spoke in February 2005 on the topic “The Legality and Legitimacy of Unilateral Armed Intervention in an Age of Terror, Neo-Imperialism and Massive Violations of Human Rights. Is International Law Evolving in the Right Direction?”.

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